Hide and Seek

Do you ever try to hide from God?  Have you ever thought, OK, God, that’s enough, I am going to pull away from you, create some distance between us, so that I can be relieved from whatever God’s calling is in your life. 

I have…and still do.

I play a game of Hide and Seek with God, and just so you know, I lose every time.   How can you hide from the One who created you?  How can you hide from the very thing that has made you, you?

I was reading Psalms 139 tonight, and felt some comfort in knowing I was not alone in this game of Hide and Seek.  David, the great David, also, tried to hide from God.  Maybe he didn’t hide in the way that I hide, or you hide, but he had his own form of hiding.   He also had his own reasons for hiding as well.

We all fall short of God’s purpose for us.  We all fall short of the standards that we put on ourselves.  These are the times we need God the most, not the times to hide from him.

My hiding from God is like trying to hide from myself.  It’s impossible.  The only person who knows me better than I know me, and probably even better than I know myself, is God.   God created me, and you.  He created the universe we live in.  He gave us the air that we each breathe and put in each of us a purpose for our creation.

David says it so beautifully, in Psalms 139 1-4 (Amplified Bible) O Lord, you have searched me (thoroughly) and have known me.  You know my down sitting and my uprising; you understand my thought afar off.  You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways.  For there is not a word in my tongue (still unuttered), but, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.  

David is saying, Lord, God, you have seen all of me.  You have looked at me inwardly and outwardly and You know all that I am going to do, the good and the bad, even before I know them.   He’s telling us that God even knows our words before we are going to say them.  He knows our thoughts even before they are formed, or before the situation happens to cause them.  You know it all.  There is no hiding from you, because you have seen my days before my days were numbered. 

David goes on to say that God’s infinite knowledge is too wonderful to me; it’s high and above me, I cannot reach it. 

We struggle trying to understand our lives, and the reasons why things happen the way they do, and we will come up with conclusions or theories that work for our feeble minds, but they are never the way that God thinks.  God’s thoughts are out of reach for us.  God thinks and lives on a level that our minds can’t reach, but our hearts and spirits can. 

We can connect with God on a new level.  We don’t need to have the thoughts that God has, though I know many times I would like too, but I don’t need too.  I don’t need to understand his design for my life, but I do need to trust it.   We connect with God and have a relationship with God, through the Holy Spirit.  Jesus made the way for us to have this relationship by going to the Cross and accepting our sins.

With this sacrifice of Jesus, we now are able to not fully understand God’s ways or thinking, but we get to understand God, through the Holy Spirit.  We get to be the vessel that God uses to work through and change the lives of people around us. 

David is sure of himself and the love and affection that God has for him.  He expresses it throughout Psalms 139.  David is saying, no, I don’t understand your ways, or your thinking, but I understand that there is no hiding from them either.  I understand that you knew me before you created me in my mother’s womb.   Before breath came into our lungs, God knew us.  God knew the plans He had for you before there ever was a you.   He created you, so carefully put you together.  He formed you with precision and love.  He created you in His perfect image.

When I think about the fact that my life was planned and purposed for me, before there was a me, it does give me some peace.  It gives me a reassurance that I don’t need to know everything.  I don’t need to be the keeper of all the secrets, because I am not, or the one in control.  I don’t need to shield my sins, thoughts, or behavior from God, because He knew them before I ever did. 

And yet, He still loves me!! 

There is no darkness, no pit, no evil, no fear or shame that can hide you or keep you from God.  He’s been in all these places before you ever were.   Because of this we, and I really mean, I no longer need to hide myself from God.  He’s there hiding with me.  

To the people who are trying to hide themselves or shield themselves from God, pain or confusion with drugs, alcohol, sex or work, this isn’t possible, because He is already there.  He is sitting on that bar stool next to you.  He is standing beside you when you are doing drugs and lying beside you while you are giving a piece of yourself away.  

He is already there. 

God’s hand is on you, as David says in Psalms 139:5.  You have beset me and shut me in – behind and before, and You have laid Your hand upon me.  The hand of God is upon you.  This is the hand of protection, of love, of peace and the hand that is reaching for you, so grab it.

It’s impossible to hide from God.  It’s a futile game where you will lose every time, but I am so incredibly thankful that I lose this game every time.  I am so thankful that even though I try to hide, I can never be separated from the one who created me… perfectly, in His image.